kies/nps - updating firmwareSupport

At some stage when I have more time, I will root the phone (as per Beerkan's guide). (How long does it take btw?)

Before this however, will the Kies (or NPS) software allow me to upgrade the phone 'officially' to a higher/better/faster (baseband?) version ?

I've been browsing these forums since I got the phone in June and following most of Beerkan's posts, and I get the impression that there are upgrades I can do to my without having to root. Is this correct?

Q. Your instruction re: SD partitioning was a little confusing:
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"Choose what size you want your Apps Partition (256Mb to 1Gb)
Make 1024M ext2 on SD"
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The apps partition is ext2, right? If this is the case, then why do you say to "make 1024M on ext2" after giving the option to actually "choose what size you want..."
or have I got that wrong somehow???

Q. And does your instruction assume a 1 or 2Gb SD card?

Mine is a standard Samung 1 Gb card. According to AppBrain I have about 65-70 apps (about 65 Mb worth - not much)

With that in mind, I went for the 384Mb ext2 partition size, thinking that that would be ample.